Gog and Magog, acrylic & ink, 24" x 30"

COMMENTARY

The Voyages of Dr. Kissinger

I

Holy Cow Peace Maker of Diaspora Inc.,

His Excellency awaits the trade of Omar's Dome,

while Shias and Sunis hi-ho--

never-you-mind-- "Eeny, meeny, miney, moe,

I'll catch a Kissinger by the toe."

In Jerusalem he remembers the words of Horace:

Nil admirari.  Or vieleicht nicht.

In Cairo dans la Societe Anonyme d'Aphrodite

Anooan Mahmood Sadat ( bathing in Tokay

and Roussillon) barks, "It's in the bag!"

Scheherazade-like I see it all: blue and gold,

the jack-in-the-box next to El Askar.

GUTTURAL, GUTTERAL, GUTTERAL, GUTTERAL.....

On his lap Spinoza's De emendatione humani

intellectus, proper, respectable,

Nobel-prize stuff.  And sipping

a Mouton-Rothschild '29 K soon sheep-counts

his way to eternity.  Shhh.  Mum's the word.

II

In the Great Hall the menu:

   Shanghai Duck phalanxed by Seaweed Fu,

Ostrich Egg Soup gold-tinted

   with Angel Fish, Cantonese UFOs,

Grapevines a la Lao Tzu.

   And then the fortune cookie:

"Says Chairman Mao-- 'Not here

   the time-stains of Europa,

Hyperion, and Nestor of Gerenia.'"

   In this samizdat K sees

the Hegelian three-step

   goosestepping down the middle-lane.

Yet the table-talk, the dry rattle

from the throat, the reminiscences

of Selassie's salt-and-pepper throne,

of Generalissimo SPQR

on the late-late-show--

yes, how alma-materish to be whisked

through third-world rigmaroles

to zero in so gesundheit on bloodfeuds,

and to jabber at the eleventh hour,

"A souvlaki for your thoughts.

C'est moi, NATO Prometheus."

Amidst the Chinese ack-ack

far from Anglo-Saxondom's quarterback

another bumper crop of nuclear chit-chat.

III

At Yad Veshem, like a cardio-tachograph

of his memories, the scrape of metal

had made its point: Big Daddy Rockefeller,

Aide-de-camp, Secretary.....

Now louder than a scrub woman

Alma Mom screached it out, "An Essene

with the soul of a cockroach!"  Quietly,

her aria finished, glassy-eyed,

Golda pinched the microseconds

for his reply.  Once in the Carleton

Hotel in Cannes a jellabahed Greek

had shot kamikaze-like through

the paparazzi and, presto!.....

lest suicidology be the order

of the day, he stiffened,

his Olympianism threatened.

If given the Three Magic Wishes

of the Good Fairy, His Excellency

would suggest that from Clio's shards

Metternich at this point would smile.

IV

Far from kvetching Cappadocia

K alone-- de contemptu mundi--

fingers the cultural commissar's

Tauchnitz editions of Rudyard Kipling.

Two martinis and a delirium tremens later

Nelson's in-crowd ogles fancy fondues.

But to K an upgush of memories:

from Sarejevo horse-and-buggy days

Oswald Spengler's snail's pace

now a frightened beast

rushing towards a rendezvous

with Mecca's cyclical snooze.

V

And then amidst the metropolitan sing-song

first there were the couldn't-care-lessers

statued by history's oohs and ahs.

And then Phemios, Antikleia, Arete,

and Zeus Kronion's Autolykos

at the fosse bloodied by Excalibur's cut:

spooks cheek-to-jowl, rock-candy-like, skin-deep,

caryatids in the gothic gloom,

catacombish visitors from Blenheim

and Agincourt and Dunkirk;

and the organ Almorgado hallelujahing,

and the chorus Nagasaki hosannahing;

and then Dizzy, Philistia's whatchamajig

from Walthamstow, rushing past Eumaios

and Eurymakhos to embrace K by the hollow ditch

near Newton's slab; and from a dozen triumvarites

the cry

          Invade!

             Invade!

                Invade!

(c)